Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-174013, filed Jun. 23, 2006, and Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-314103, filed Nov. 21, 2006, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a curtain-type airbag apparatus and an airbag module which develop an airbag in a curtain-shape manner along an inside of a window of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
A curtain-type airbag apparatus which develops an airbag in a curtain-shape manner along an inside of a window of a vehicle, is provided with an airbag which is arranged along a roof side rail being a top edge of a window and has a vehicle interior side covered with an inner cover, while in an accommodated state thereof. The developing airbag develops while pressing the inner cover to open it. A conventional art is proposed in which: a deformable thinner portion is formed in the inner cover itself in order to enable easy opening thereof; and a portion lower that the thinner portion is rotated by pressing force of the airbag (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2004-291859 (hereinafter “Patent Document 1”)).
In the case in which a round-shaped design is employed for the roof side rail being the top edge provided with the airbag, the inner cover and the thinner portion formed therein have to employ the round-shaped design also; however, such design is not suitable for an opening operation of the inner cover (i.e., not suitable for enabling a smooth rotation of the portion lower than the thinner portion). That is, the linear-shaped thinner portion enables easy rotation of the lower portion, while the round-shaped thinner portion makes the easy rotation harder. Accordingly, in order to prevent this problem, a slidable inner cover may be employed; however, such construction needs a comparatively large device for sliding the inner cover, and also disables obtaining a large opening through which the airbag develops. In addition, the above-mentioned Patent Document 1 discloses a construction in which: the vehicle interior side and the vehicle exterior side of the airbag are covered with covers to form a module; and the module is installed in a vehicle body by clips provided on the vehicle exterior side of the cover. However, such installation structure disables securing sufficient rigidity for maintaining the shape of the module.
Accordingly, the present invention has an object of providing: a curtain-type airbag apparatus which enables a smooth opening of an inner cover by a developing airbag with a wide opening, even in the case in which the airbag is arranged along a top edge of a round-shaped window; and an airbag module which enables increasing the high rigidity for maintaining the shape thereof.